


The Pandora Box (comes in two parts)

by TerresDeBrume



Category: Saint Seiya
Genre: Gen, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-22 01:28:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerresDeBrume/pseuds/TerresDeBrume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It could be said that Deathmask and Aphrodite originately associated for purely strategic reasons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Pandora Box (comes in two parts)

It starts like this: when Anchise is five, a man with steel in his eyes and stone in his lips seizes the pudgy hand exploring his pocket and lifts the would-be thief by the wrist. Anchise spits and hisses like a wildcat, scratching what surface of skin he can reach, and the man laughs, says something Anchise won’t be able to translate for several years.  
(He won't like what it says.)

It starts with all the anger a newly orphaned toddler can muster after three weeks spent hiding in nooks and crannies to avoid sleeping out in the open, scraping meat from dumpsters and trash cans; and it starts with Anchise accepting a meal with the same face he remembers his Papa wearing when the men with guns used to come for their money and Papa said no.  
  
The legend of Cancer Death Mask, and his subsequent lifelong (complicated) relationship with Pisces Aphrodite, starts with a steely hand disguising its strength as a stroke of head and a grey-haired toddler trying to hide the pain in his scalp.  
  
A year later, Anchise has completely adapted to his life in the sanctuary. It doesn’t feel so different from Sicile, except here he has the almost-permanent guaranty of a meal and a bed for every night, which was more than he had before. Of course, at six, he doesn’t quite think about it this way, but he appreciates the stability and security all the same. For the rest, well. It’s mostly fighting bigger boys to be left alone, biting and scratching while he waits for his master to tell him what his training will be.  
There are two other boys living in the Cancer temple, both bigger than Anchise but both afraid of his pale eyes and grey hair, both knowing exactly how sharp Anchise’s teeth can be.  
Even the really big kids like Saga and Aioros know better than to annoy him, unless Aiolia from the Leo house is concerned… Saga still has a scar from where Anchise bit him six months ago, and it is not something the youngest of the Cancer apprentice is going to let the other boys forget, not when it makes his master smile so proudly at him.  
(The other saints don’t sound like they approve but it doesn’t really matter to Anchise, who cares about his master and no one else.)  
  
This morning a new apprentice joins the other at the breakfast table. It’s becoming rarer because most saints have already found satisfying candidates and are now in the process of weeding out the weak ones, as Saga says, but the Pisces saint was one of the few without an apprentice.  
The newcomer is blonde with a frame of curls around a doll’s blue-eyed face, and Anchise is certain it’s a girl. No boy is that pretty… But girl or no, there are well established things here. Anchise has done his best to be the strongest of the kids around here and keep all the others on their toes -even Milo of the Scorpio temple, who Anchise likes well enough, knows better than cross him. This girl is going to have to learn.  
  
Later that morning, Anchise waits for the fifteen minutes recess the apprentices get from their exercises in heightening their cosmos, and then corners the new girl between two destroyed columns for a modicum of privacy.  
  
She stumbles forward when he shoves her, and scraps her bared knees on the rough ground of their arena, as have done countless apprentice before her.  
When she rises, Anchise is already smirking as he waits for her tears and pleading… But this is not what he gets. Instead, the girl from the Pisces house sends a steely glare his way and says:  
  
“Don’t poosh!”  
  
She doesn’t speak much Greek, that much is certain, but Anchise is six and the information, if it was registered consciously, wouldn’t matter to him.  
He pushes the girl again but she stands her ground this time, then shoves back with all the strength of the wiry toddler she is.  
  
Anchise falls backward, bottom slapping against the stone and sand, and for a second he doesn’t know what to do. Then anger steps over confusion, and in a matter of seconds he grabs the girl’s hair and yanks it down, causing her to yelp and reach for his shirt.  
Anchise is six and the girl sounds even younger, but even then it’s not just a slapping contest like Anchise used to see before when he went to school… They are both starting to learn what hurts them and how to inflict it on others, and they are children. They have no moral restraint to prevent them from playing dirty.  
They struggle like this for a while until Anchise feels the sharp pain of pitying teeth in his shoulders and steps back even as the girl tries to lick the wound again.  
  
Anchise hears someone come near them with an angry roar, just before the girl in front of him is sent reeling with a vigorous slap to the face and her master grabs her by the shoulder to take her back to their temple.  
  
Anchise keeps smirking until his master is next to him and the world sinks into darkness.  
  


**{ooo}**

  
Anchise’s shoulder feels sore when he wakes up, the bandage around it too tight for comfort, and he feels light headed, like he does just after his naps.  
The doctor who man the sanctuary’s clinic tell him he’s been very sick for the past three weeks, and to avoid looking too closely at his wound… So naturally, Anchise decides to take a look as soon as they’re gone.  
He has to look cross-eyed to see anything and it ends up giving him a headache, but he does manage to catch a glimpse of his wound. It’s bigger than it should be for a normal bite, Anchise knows because he’s been bitten before. The skin is still faintly yellow around the mark proper, the edges deep and vivid red where a thicker line of skin was taken off, leaving a literal dent in the skin.  
  
“What’s that for?” Milo from the Scorpio temple asks when Anchise sits with him for lunch three days later.  
“Because I have _nevrosis_ ,” Anchise explains, mangling the words, his chest puffing with pride. “My skin rotted, so they took it out because nevrosis is bad.”  
  
Milo lets out a low ‘oh’ filled with as much disgust as admiration, prompting the boy from the Capricorn temple to turn toward them and ask what the matter is… Within minutes, everybody knows the Cancer apprentice lost some of his skin to the Pisces kid’s venom, and even Saga and Aioros can’t rival that.  
Anchise is just that cool.  
  
His moment of glory, however, stops when the door opens to reveal none other than the author of his first battle scar and a hushed silence falls on the room. From his end of their table, Saga takes a look at their twelve masters whose eyes are now alternating between Anchise and the little blonde child.  
Anchise’s face transforms, from proud to annoyed to angry, and he turns his head the other way when the Pisces child comes next to him.  
  
“Is it true you’re poisoned?” Milo asks the other apprentice.  
“It’s a merluzzo,” Anchise says, “just a stupid, ugly fish.”  
“I think it’s cool,” Milo says then, but the Pisces kid doesn’t listen, frowns at Anchise and says:  
“I beat you! I beat you again now if you poosh!”  
“You speak funny,” Anchise retorts, trying to find a new angle to discredit the other one.  
“You speak funny,” Milo says, and Anchise says:  
“It’s a girl!”  
  
Milo pauses at that and watches their table neighbor with renewed intensity, nodding a little as he comes to the same conclusion as his comrade.  
  
“Not girl!” The other kid says, “boy!”  
“Don’t believe you,” Anchise says, crossing his arms on his chest.  
“Yeah, me neither,” Milo exclaims, “you need to show us your  weenie or we won’t believe you!”  
“Aphrodite no!”  
  
At the masters’ table, someone gets up in a hurry, but they don’t have time to reach them before Aphrodite’s pants slide down and he lifts his tunic to reveal exactly how much of a boy he is.  
  
Anchise has about one second to smirk before his master’s hand slaps against his ear, making it ring loudly as the Pisces saint says something Anchise can’t understand to his apprentice -he sounds angry though, and Anchise gives a thumb up to Milo as his master drags him away by the scruff of the neck.  
  
“I’ll teach you how to behave in public,” the Pisces saint says, “Toilet duties for a week, both of you!”  
  
The other boys, who hate being in charge of the waterless toilets above all other tasks, let out loud gagging sounds and pretend to vomit, and Anchise is fairly sure Milo asks his master if they can have beans next week.  
  


**{ooo}**

  
“Figlio de puta!” Anchise repeats as he helps Aphrodite with the door to the toilets.  
  
There are few taps for water in the sanctuary, and those that exists are jealously guarded. Most of the time the apprentices aren’t even allowed to go near them, and the toilets they use -four cabins in total, scattered along the stairs that lead to the Pope’s palace- are dry toilets, made with sawdust and buckets. It’s heavy and it cuts at their little hands, so much so that the Aries apprentice offered them to help but Aphrodite shut him down, saying they weren’t babies, and Anchise nodded.  
  
“What that means?” Aphrodite asks.  
“Mean stuff,” Anchise answers as he watches Milo boast about how he ate three plates of beans to the newly arrived Aquarius apprentice, a boy with dark red hair and a solemn face. “Because Milo’s mean.”  
  
Aphrodite doesn’t answer, but Anchise can see in his eyes that he’s thinking of their first meeting.  
  
“Fighting is good,” Anchise says, “for strongness. This is mean.”  
“Mean,” Aphrodite nods sagely. “We mean too?”  
  
At first, Anchise goes to answer no… And hen he thinks better of it.  
  


**{ooo}**

  
“Milo!” A man’s voice barks throughout the Sanctuary,  ”I’m going to catch you boy and then you’ll be in big trouble!”  
  
Anchise cackles as Milo thumps on the lid of the old luggage they tricked him into. Aphrodite is hiding his mouth behind his hand and his shoulders shake with joyful laughter as he watches Milo’s master stride up to the Aquarius house in search of his apprentice. They wait until the man is long out of sight before Anchise jumps down from the suitcase and they bolt away, trying to hold their laughter in.  
  
“That was fun,” Anchise says between two raspy breaths once they’ve reaches the Cancer temple. They’re both going to get in trouble for what they did, but it’s totally worth it.  
“Yes,” Aphrodite answers, “very fun!”  
  
They laugh together for a while more before they go face their respective punishment and, when Aphrodite wakes up with his hair coated in honey a week later, Anchise doesn’t hesitate one second to offer his help in seeking revenge.  
  
(They manage to make the blame for their prank war rest squarely on Milo’s shoulders and for years afterwards, people in the Sanctuary will glare at him every time the dangerous duo comes up with a new prank.)


End file.
